IN MID September the Pontis Foundation announced the creation of the Fund for Transparent Slovakia. Its main objectives are to develop ethics and transparency, to decrease corruption and to build a healthy entrepreneurial environment. Already this year the fund will support non-governmental organisations fighting corruption, cronyism, waste of public resources and unethical governance, the foundation announced on its website.
“Slovakia has been lacking such a fund,” Beata Hlavčáková, the executive director of the Business Leaders’ Forum and the programme director of the Pontis Foundation, explained. “Its mission is to support watchdogs and think tanks, which are important elements of a strong democracy and of a healthy entrepreneurial environment necessary for the economic development of every country. Compared to other organisations these NGOs have difficulty regarding the financing of their activities because they need to maintain their independence.”
The idea of establishing the Fund for Transparent Slovakia came from the Business Leaders’ Forum, a cluster of companies that made a commitment to run their businesses responsibly. In the first year the fund will allocate €50,350 to NGOs with successful projects. The Fund is financially supported by Západoslovenská Energetika, Slovenské Elektrárne, Slovak Telekom, Heineken Slovensko, Embraco Slovakia, Slovalco and Accenture.
Watchdogs and think tanks were able to apply for funds with their projects focusing on institutional and programme development as well as financial sustainability of organisations via the online grant portal Darca.sk until October 19. The commission chose Via Iuris (€20,000), Transparency International Slovensko (€13,000), Fair-play Alliance (€10,350) and the Health Policy Institute (€7,000), the TASR newswire informed on November 20.
